Parties urged to endorse more women candidates in 2022

POLITICAL parties have been urged to endorse more women candidates to contest the 2022 general election, an official says.
Demographer and lawyer Eleina Butuna told The National that the general election in 2017 failed to elect a woman to Parliament because political parties did not support women.
Butuna was one of the presenters at the national dialogue workshop in Port Moresby yesterday.
There were 193 women candidates who contested in 2017.
“It’s to do with political make-up of parties because in the last election, none of the political parties endorsed women candidates,” she said.
“In the previous election, The Party endorsed two or three women and they came through.”
Butuna said the integrity of political parties and candidates commission tried to amend the organic law on integrity of political parties and candidates so that each political party endorsed one or two women.
She said another reason was the lack of financial support and proper coordination between political parties and women candidates.
“One thing that is lacking is the awareness on women participation, especially by the women who had won the previous elections,” she said.
“The three women politicians should have advocated more women participation.
“In my view, there was lack of support from those women who were elected into Parliament.”
Butuna said women had gone through a lot of challenges standing for elections against men.